The Haunting
by Silly Little Sparrow
Summary: Severus and Ginny, the year the war ended.


Disclaimer: Not mine.

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><p><em><strong>Merely the sound of your voice<strong>_  
><em><strong>Made me believe that you were her<strong>_

Severus watched them for a long time. Black-robed columns of students marching, faces solemn, footsteps heavy. He, a black shadow himself, pale with weariness and cold with sorrow, watched.

_What is the world come to?_

A bell was tolling: supper. The house elves would be bustling in the kitchens, steamy and warm, full of good smells. At least he hadn't taken that away from them, the food. He had done that much.

Spinning away from the window, he surveyed the room that had belonged to the man he killed. He had cleared it away, of course, all the little trinkets and magical artifacts. Not the portraits, those couldn't be removed, bound by a magic a thousand years old. But the chamber, stripped as it was, looked hollow and alien.

He tightened his jaw. _None of that, no memories, only here, only now_. Severus couldn't afford to feel. _Just a few more months_, he thought. _A few months, that's all, then I can die and know nothing. I can forget everything_.

Rarely did Severus eat these dark days. But his absence from the dining hall would be noted, so he went anyway. The children preferred him not to be there, naturally, but he had to see them, had to make certain the Carrow twins weren't hurting them too badly.

Silent as a shadow, he made his way through the halls. Beloved Hogwarts: he knew every stone, each secret passageway, loved them all as an echo of one thousand years.

An echo. Laughter; flash of red hair.

_Lily_, he murmured, desperation quickening his step. Except he knew, knew even as the hope fell from his lips. _Impossible_...

Laughter; flash of green light. Lily, cold in his arms.

But it had sounded so much like her. He had to know, so he followed the echo, the shadow moving on the walls ahead of him.

She hadn't seen him. Just walked with her friend, laughing for a moment as though time had forgotten her. Albus was alive, Harry was still at school, Severus was still the brooding hated Potions master. Bubble trapped in amber.

_Ginny Weasley_.

_**Just like the river disturbs**_  
><em><strong>My inner peace<strong>_

Lily Evans had loved the sky. They would lie cross legged on the summer grass, hand in hand, calm blue of the heavens above them, watching.

He couldn't lie like that without her. He was too awkward, too self-conscious, to be so uninhibited. But when he was with _her_, everything changed.

Like an old man, he tried. Now, a bright cold morning, too early for students to be out of bed, too early for the Carrows to be at their games. In the solitude of the trees by the lake, he lowered himself to the ground, feeling stiff and strange.

Once seated, preparing himself to lean back, a soft movement nearby caught his eye; he stared.

Curtain of long red hair, long delicate ankles crossed, skin creamy white against the green of the grass: the same child.

Ginny seemed as startled as he was. Severus knew in the back of his mind that he should react somehow, regain authority, somehow.

Instead, he stared, paralyzed and lost, into the eyes he knew so well. Loved so well.

When he made no movement to harm her, Ginny's face softened. He had wondered if she suspected him, quietly, so as not to blow his cover. He had feared, he had hoped.

A rubbish hope.

But here she was. Slowly, Ginny laid her head back, eyes on him all the while. It didn't seem cautious, as though she feared him.

It was rather, Severus perceived, an invitation.

_What the hell_. He accepted.

They remained thus, each drinking in the other, for a long time.

_**Somewhere in time I will find you and love you again**_  
><em><strong>Like the wind sweeps the earth<strong>_

"_Tell me_," she commanded, "Tell me what I already know."

It was too dangerous, even here in the office that had belonged to Albus, where no one could hide. Didn't she know he needed to be stone and ice? He couldn't afford weakness.

Lily had asked the same question, so long ago. _Another time, another sin_.

How she had known, he never figured out. Perhaps she had read his mind, lifted out the secret like a child plucks a seashell from the sand.

How childish he had been then. "No, Lil. No, you don't know. I'm into other things now, big things. If I tell you, you're dead." _Death Eater, that's what I am_.

He didn't know then how false that was.

She had waited a heartbeat longer, green eyes demanding. _Go away_, he thought. _Leave me to sin in peace_.

And she had.

Severus had wondered if she had wept for him, long after. If she would find him again beneath the trees, ask him again, watch the sky again. But she never did, she had left and died and he never had told her what she already knew.

**_Somewhere in time when no virtues are left to defend_**  
><strong><em>You've fallen deep<em>**

"No," he said, childishly.

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Say it," she said quietly.

"I won't." _Go away, I have nothing to give you_.

"You will."

They stood in the office, eyes locked, black and green competing. Ginny didn't move.

Light streamed in from one of the windows, golden light, touching her hair, her eyes, flash of red, flash of green.

Severus tried again. "If I tell you, we will both be dead."

"Not good enough," Ginny answered, shaking her head.

"I can't tell you because it doesn't exist."

"Tell me again."

"No! What do you want? Let me be, I have no time."

Ginny walked towards him, eyes burning. There was something fierce and hungry in the way she was looking at him that made his heart pound like mad.

He stared.

She met his eyes fearlessly, a lion roaring. Very softly, she asked once more. "Tell me."

He waited a heartbeat longer. She waited too, green eyes demanding. "I..."

_What the hell_. "I work for Albus. I love him."

Simple, the last words. They fell so easily from his lips.

And then she was in his arms, kissing him hard, fingers cupping his cheeks as he held her. Her mouth was sweet, honey and summer grasses, hungrily pressing against his own. Her hair beneath his hands, the narrow hips and white neck, standing on her tip toes and falling into him deeply.

She kissed him for a long time, the same child he had loved.

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><p>Thanks for reading! The interspersed lines are from Kamelot's "The Haunting (Somewhere in Time)"<p> 


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